I am sure the petting zoo was around well after AK was built. I remember running through it when we first starting coming to the fort in 2015. I thought it was around until the started the build on the new Tri Circle D ranch. I use to run through the petting zoo before jumping on the trail that went to WL.
A few years after AK opened, the animals (goats mostly) were moved from the FW petting zoo to AK. The ponies stayed at FW and were given the area that once housed the goats.
So the area that was once the petting zoo was still there, but only ponies in it.
From AllEars.net:
Minnie Moo at the Petting Zoo
Mickey Moo, a white Holstein cow with a black Mickey Mouse head silhouette shape naturally occurring on her side, was housed in Big Thunder Ranch at
Disneyland’s Frontierland in 1988. Mickey Moo was a part of Mickey’s 60th birthday celebration that year but became instantly a popular attraction for guests.
The unusual marking on the side of the cow was not quite as unusual as it was originally assumed. A Midwest farmer contacted the Disney Company with photos of his own cow that had the same type of Mickey Mouse silhouette head.
Minnie Moo, the white Holstein with a similar black Mickey Mouse head silhouette, came to the Walt Disney World Resort from Edgerton, Minnesota, in 1990, living first in the Magic Kingdom.
Grandma Duck’s Petting Farm operated at Mickey’s Birthdayland/Mickey’s Starland from 1988-1996. In 1996, the area was transformed into The Barnstormer at Goofy’s Wise Acres Farm.
With this change in the area, Minnie Moo and the other animals were moved to a Petting Farm at the Tri-Circle D Ranch (near the Pony Rides) in Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort and Campground. Minnie Moo died in August 2001, at the age of fifteen, a little more than the average lifespan for a cow.
The petting farm was officially closed early in 2005 with the animals relocated to Disney’s Animal Kingdom’s Affection Section.
It was estimated that millions of adults and children visited Minnie Moo, petted her, talked to her and took her photo. She was prominently used in publicity material, although she was occasionally confused with Mickey Moo.
The popularity of Mickey Moo and Minnie Moo sparked a short-lived frenzy where the Disney Company was inundated with offers of various animals that had a Mickey Mouse type marking on them, from pigs and dogs to even inanimate objects like potatoes.
In January 1991, Walt Disney World purchased an Iowa pig named Mickey from Tom and Teresa Reuter of Monticello that had three linked black spots that resembled the silhouette of Mickey Mouse’s head. They also took a brother piglet with similar markings. Mickey Pig and Mickey Piglet joined Minnie Moo and have also passed away.
